week 1
HISTORY OF ART AND DESIGN 1 History has no natural divisions. A woman living in Florence in the 15th century did not think of herself as a woman of the Renaissance. Historians divide history into large and small units in order to make characteristics and changes clear to themselves and to students. It’s important to remember that any historical period is a construction and a simplification. Below are some important basics to get you started.
As you read the timeline below, please keep in mind that equally momentous developments have occurred in Africa, Asia, the Americas and in the Pacific. Prehistoric (before c. 3000 B.C.E.) The term “prehistoric” refers to the time before written history. In the West, writing was invented in ancient Mesopotamia just before 3000 B.C.E., so this period includes visual culture (paintings, sculpture, and architecture) made before that date. Ancient Mesopotamia was the earliest civilization in world history, and the longest lasting. It was probably also the most influential, as all later western civilizations were built on foundations it laid. "Mesopotamia" is a Greek word meaning, "Land between the Rivers". The region is a vast, dry plain through which two great rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris, flow. These rivers rise in mountain ranges to the north before flowing through Mesopotamia to the sea. As they approach the sea, the land becomes marshy, with lagoons, mud flats, and reed banks. Today, the rivers unite before they empty into the Persian Gulf, but in ancient times the sea came much further inland, and they flowed into it as two separate streams. The oldest decorative forms we can recognize as art come from Africa and may date back to 100,000 B.C.E. In contrast, the oldest cave paintings known are about 40,800 years old, and although we used to think that only our species, Homo Sapiens, made art—anthropologists now speculate that Neanderthals {video}may have made at least some of these very early images. Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age, the earliest period of human development and the longest phase of mankind's history. It is approximately coextensive with the Pleistocene geologic epoch, beginning about 2 million years ago and ending in various places between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, when it was succeeded by the Mesolithic period. By far the most outstanding feature of the Paleolithic period was the evolution of the human species from an apelike creature, or near human, to true Homo sapiens. The Neolithic revolution or New Stone Age was a period in the development of human technology occurs during the Prehistoric Era, beginning about 10,200 BC, according to the ASPRO chronology, in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world and ending between 4,500 and 2,000 BC. This is when our ancestors learned to farm and domesticate animals, allowing them to give up their nomadic ways, and settle down to build cities and civilizations. The term Neolithic derives from the Greek νεολιθικός, neolithikos, from νέος neos, "new" + λίθος lithos, "stone", literally meaning "New Stone Age". The term was invented by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. Unlike the Paleolithic, when more than one human species existed, only one human species (Homo sapiens) reached the Neolithic. One of the best preserved is the Neolithic village at Chatal Huyuk in Anatolia (now modern Turkey). The partial reconstruction of the village gives an idea of buildings.The village of Chatal Huyuk is the largest Neolithic site in the Near East covering 13 hectares. It was founded in c.7000 BC. Ancient (c. 3000 B.C.E. to c. 400 C.E.) This period includes the great early civilizations of the ancient Near East (think Babylonia), ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, the Etruscan {video}, and the Romans—everything that comes after the invention of writing and before the fall of the Roman Empire. Keep in mind the disintegration of the Roman Empire took centuries, but to simplify, c. 400 will do. It was during this period that the ancient Greeks first applied human reason to their observations of the natural world and created some of the earliest naturalistic images of human beings. This period is often credited with the birth of Western philosophy, mathematics, theater, science, and democracy. The Romans in turn created an empire that extended across most of Europe, and all the lands that surround the Mediterranean Sea. They were expert administrators and engineers and they saw themselves as the inheritors of the great civilizations that came before them, particularly, Greece and Egypt (which they conquered). It’s important to remember that although history is often presented as a series of discrete stories, in reality narratives often overlap making history both more complex and more interesting. For example, it was also during the Roman Empire that the historical figure we now call Jesus Christ lived. Jesus and his apostles were Jewish men living in what is today Israel, but which was then part of the Roman Empire. Middle Ages (c. 400 C.E. to c. 1400 C.E.) In European history, the Middle Ages, or Medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The first half of this thousand-year period witnessed terrible political and economic upheaval in Western Europe, as waves of invasions by migrating peoples destabilized the Roman Empire. Early Middle Ages. The barbarian invaders, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. The Roman emperor Constantine established Constantinople, originally known as Byzantium (now Istanbul, Turkey) as a new capital in the East in 330 C.E. and the Western Roman Empire broke apart soon after. This Byzantine Empire [MAP]often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this context, it survived the 5th century fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire came under the rule of the Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with Antiquity was not complete. The still-sizable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power. It was during this period that Islam, one of the three great monotheistic religions, was born. Within little more than a century of the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E., Islam had become an empire that stretched from Spain across North Africa, the Middle and Near East, to India. Medieval Islam was a leader in science and technology and established some of world’s great centers of learning (i.e. Cordoba). Islamic culture played an important role in preserving and translating ancient Greek texts at a time when much of the knowledge created during the ancient world was lost. Christianity spread across what had been the Roman Empire; even among migrating invaders (Vandals, Visigoths, etc.). The Christian Church, headed by the Pope, emerged as the most powerful institution in Western Europe, the Orthodox Church dominated in the East. Petrarch (a writer who lived in the 1300s) described the early Medieval period as the "Dark Ages" because to him it seemed to be a period of declining human achievement, especially when he compared it to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The “Middle Ages” got its name because Renaissance scholars saw it as a long barbaric period that separated them from the great civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome that they both celebrated and emulated. Medieval society was organized into clearly defined strata. At the top was the king. Below were lesser nobles. These lords in turn, ruled over peasants and serfs (the vast majority of the population). Serfs were laborers who were permanently bound to work the land owned by their lord. The basic unit of this system, known as Feudalism, was the lord/vassal relationship. The vassal would provide labor (in the fields or in battle) to the lord in exchange for land and protection. Mobility between strata was very rare. Of course, the thousand years of the Middle Ages saw the creation of many great works of art and literature, but they were different from what Petrarch valued. The works of art created in the Middle Ages were largely focused on the teachings of the Church. It is important to remember that during the Middle Ages it was rare that anyone except members of the clergy (monks, priests, etc.) could read and write. Despite expectations that the world would end in the year 1,000, Western Europe became increasingly stable, and this period is sometimes referred to as the Late (or High) Middle Ages. This period saw the renewal of large scale building and the re-establishment of sizable towns. Monasteries, such as Cluny, became wealthy and important centers of learning. Within the Middle Ages, there are subdivisions in art history, including Early Christian, Byzantine, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque and Gothic. When we look closely at much of the art and politics of the 1,000 years of the Middle Ages, we find a complex and ongoing relationship with the memory and legacy of the ancient Roman empire and this is the foundation for the Renaissance. Romanesque carving |
Renaissance (c. 1400 to 1600)
Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term "Renaissance" is from the same French word, meaning "rebirth." It comes from the Italian Rinascimento, "Re" meaning "again" and "nascere" meaning "be born."In part, the Renaissance was a rebirth of interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture. It was also a period of economic prosperity in Europe—particularly in Italy and in Northern Europe. In art history, we study both the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. We talk about a way of looking at the world called Humanism, which—at its most basic—placed renewed value on human knowledge, and the experience of this world (as opposed to focusing largely on the heavenly realm), using ancient Greek and Roman literature and art as a model. As a cultural movement, the Renaissance period encompassed a rebellion of classical-based learning, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. Traditionally, this intellectual transformation has resulted in the Renaissance being viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. There are only a handful of moments in history that we can point to that changed everything. The invention and adoption of the printing press was certainly one. As a result of the wider availability of books, literacy rates in Europe dramatically increased. Readers were empowered and in many ways we can trace the origin of our own information revolution to 15th-century Germany and Gutenberg’s first printing press. { A Gutenberg Bible Sells for Record Price }
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg c. 1398 – February 3, 1468) was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe. Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439. Among his many contributions to printing are: the invention of a process for mass-producing movable type. Gutenberg's method for making type is traditionally considered to have included a type metal alloy and a hand mould for casting type. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Scientific revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses. In 1517 a German theologian and monk, Martin Luther, challenged the authority of the Pope and sparked the Protestant Reformation. His ideas spread quickly, thanks in part to the printing press. By challenging the power of the Church, and asserting the authority of individual conscience (it was increasingly possible for people to read the bible in the language that they spoke), the Reformation laid the foundation for the value that modern culture places on the individual. It is also during this period that the Scientific Revolution began and observation replaced religious doctrine as the source of our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Copernicus up-ended the ancient Greek model of the heavens by suggesting that the sun was at the center of the solar system and that the planets orbited in circles around it. However, there were still problems with getting this theory to match observation. At the beginning of the 17th century, Kepler theorized (correctly!) that the planets moved in elliptical orbits (not circular ones) and that the speed of the orbits varied according to the planets’ distance from the sun. So much for the ideal geometries of the Greeks! Early Modern (c. 1600 - 1800) It might seem strange to date the beginning of the "modern era" to so long ago, but in many ways it was the scientific, political and economic revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries that have most shaped our own society. Art historians study the Baroque style {The Basics of Art: The Baroque Period} of the 17th century. This was a time of extended and often violent conflict between Catholics and Protestants made all the more complex because of the growing power of the Europe’s great monarchies. It was a time when nations grew in size, wealth and autonomy and when national boundaries were hardened, prefiguring the countries we know today (France, Spain and England for example). This was also a period of colonization, when European powers divided and exploited the world’s people and natural resources for their own benefit. Periods The Baroque era is sometimes divided into roughly three phases for convenience: Early Baroque, c.1590–c.1625 High Baroque, c.1625–c.1660 Late Baroque, c.1660–c.1725 Late Baroque is also sometimes used synonymously with the succeeding Rococo movement. Baroque The 1700s is often called the Enlightenment. In many ways, it furthers the interest in the individual seen in the Italian Renaissance and more widely during the Protestant Reformation. Thinkers such as Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot asserted our ability to reason for ourselves instead of relying on the teachings of established institutions, such as the Church. In art history we study the Rococo and Neoclassical styles. Late Baroque is also sometimes used synonymously with the succeeding Rococo movement. The American and French Revolutions date to this period. The emerging middle classes (and later the working-classes) began a centuries-long campaign to gain political power, challenging the control of the aristocracy and monarchy. Successive reform movements (in this period and the 19th century) and revolutions gradually extended the franchise (the right to vote). Previously suffrage had been limited to males who owned land or who paid a certain amount in taxes. It was only in the second half of the 19th and the 20th centuries that universal suffrage became the norm in Europe and North America. Modern (after c. 1800) Capitalism became the dominant economic system during this period (though it had its roots in the Renaissance). Individuals risked capital to produce goods in a currency-based market which depended on inexpensive, waged labor. Labor eventually organized into unions (latter-day guilds) and in this way, asserted considerable influence. More broadly shared political power was bolstered by overall increases in the standard of living and the first experiments in public education. Steam-powered machines and unskilled laborers in factories began to replace skilled artisans. London, Paris, and New York led the unprecedented population growth of cities during this period, as people moved from the countryside or migrated to find a higher standard of living. The 20th Century was the most violent in history. It included two world wars, the Cold War, the dismantling of colonialism and the invention of the Totalitarian state. Dictators (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, the successive leaders of North Korea, etc.) imposed extreme political systems that caused mass starvation, mass dislocations and genocide. At the same time, the 20th Century was marked by the struggle for human rights and the rise of global capitalism. Where artists had previously worked under the instructions of wealthy patrons associated with the church or state, in this period, art became part of the market economy, and art itself came to be seen as personal self-expression. The high value placed on the individual, which emerged in ancient Greece and Rome and then again in the Renaissance, became the primary value of Western culture. Where artistic styles (for example, Baroque) had once covered numerous artists working over broad regions and periods of time, in the late Nineteenth and through the 20th Century, successive styles of art change with increasing speed and fracture into a kaleidoscope of individual artistic practices. Where do we fit in?We are immersed in our own time and it can be difficult to see the world around us objectively. One of the modern definitions of an artist, in fact, is someone who is particularly insightful about their own cultural moment. Thanks to global capitalism, social media and the internet, we are more interconnected and interdependent than at any other time in history. With internet access, we can all contribute to and benefit from what is being called the Information Revolution. For others, the prevalence of technology in our lives threatens our individuality and privacy, and reduces us to a data point that can be monetized by corporations like Facebook, Google, and Apple. One thing is certain, throughout the time periods sketched above, art has meant different things, and it is likely to be differently defined in the future. The history of humanity is recorded in our visual culture. Like the fate of previous civilizations, time will eventually destroy much of the visual culture that we are familiar with today. Future art historians will seek to reconstruct the world we now live in, to better understand the nuanced meanings that are so familiar to us. Perhaps someday an art historian will puzzle over an internet. |
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.
Leonardo da Vinci
Post-impressionism 1885 - 1910
The Impressionist artists opened up a new world of modern art. The Post-impressionists wanted to continue to stretch those boundaries. The term was coined by Roger Fry, a British art critic, to describe the artists who came immediately after the Impressionists. Post-impressionism began with a new generation of artists after the Impressionists such as Monet, Degas, and Renoir. It lasted approximately from 1885 to 1910.
The Post-impressionists had learned about using light, shadows, and colors in their art from the Impressionists. They wanted to add their own new ideas to art. They began to try new subjects, techniques, perspectives, and shapes to express their thoughts and emotions in art.
Examples of Post-impressionism Art
The Post-impressionists had learned about using light, shadows, and colors in their art from the Impressionists. They wanted to add their own new ideas to art. They began to try new subjects, techniques, perspectives, and shapes to express their thoughts and emotions in art.
Examples of Post-impressionism Art
cubism 1908-1920s
By the beginning of the 20th century, Europe’s most advanced artists were becoming less concerned with creating an illusion of realism in their work, and more concerned about concentrating on the analyst of forms concerned about concentrating on the analyst of forms, color, and line.
Pablo Picasso and George Braque became the originators of a new art movement, called “Cubism”, that was influenced by African art.
Picasso and Braque defied Western traditions of beauty by representing the subject in terms of block-like forms. This is what gave rise to the name “Cubist”
There were two main types of Cubism:
Pablo Picasso and George Braque became the originators of a new art movement, called “Cubism”, that was influenced by African art.
Picasso and Braque defied Western traditions of beauty by representing the subject in terms of block-like forms. This is what gave rise to the name “Cubist”
There were two main types of Cubism:
- Analytical Cubism - The first stage of the Cubism movement was called Analytical Cubism. In this style, artists would study (or analyze) the subject and break it up into different blocks. They would look at the blocks from different angles. Then they would reconstruct the subject, painting the blocks from various viewpoints.
- Synthetic Cubism - The second stage of Cubism introduced the idea of adding in other materials in a collage. Artists would use colored paper, newspapers, and other materials to represent the different blocks of the subject. This stage also introduced brighter colors and a lighter mood to the art.
week 2
ART HISTORY TIMELINE
HISTORY OF GRAPHIC DESIGN
Why should a graphic designer study handwriting?
We study handwriting because the first mechanically produced letterforms were designed to directly imitate handwriting —importing the existing manual standards for form, rhythm and spacing into printed type. The shape and line of hand drawn letterforms are influenced by the tools and materials used to make them. Sharpened bones, charcoal sticks, plant stems, brushes, feather and steel pens all contributed unique characteristics. Additional factors included the material upon which the forms were written: clay, papyrus, animal skins (vellum and parchment) and paper. |
Clay Bullae
8000–3100 B.C.E. Mesopotamia As civilization evolved from nomadic hunters into a more agricultural society and began trading goods, it was necessary to find a way to record transactions. Small portable clay tokens were fashioned into specific shapes to represent objects in approximately sixteen economic categories—sheep, grain, oil etc. The tokens were stored in clay ball-shaped envelopes, bullae, which were impressed on the outside with the shapes of the tokens found within. Around 3100 B.C.E. the shaped tokens were replaced by drawing the shapes onto clay tablets. This however was not yet a system of writing — writing is used to represent language, not as an accounting tool. The token/image system ended with the emergence of a writing—a system for graphically recording spoken language. |
Cuneiform
c. 3000 B.C.E. Cuneiform, the earliest system of actual writing, was used in a number of languages between the 34C. B.C.E. through the 1st century C.E. Its distinctive wedge form was the result of pressing the blunt end of a reed stylus into wet clay tablets. The cuneiform characters evolved from pictograms that had been rotated onto their sides, abstracted into symbols and organized into horizontal rows. (See below) Cuneiform was written from left to right, perhaps as it helped a right-handed writer to see their work as they wrote or to keep the clay from being smeared. |
Hieroglyphics
2613–2160 B.C.E. The Egyptian writing system is fused with the art of relief carving—the Greek translation of hieroglyphics is "sacred carving." The system was a mixture of both rebus and phoneticcharacters—the first link to a future alphabetic system. Hieroglyphic images have the potential to be used in three different ways: 1. As ideograms, to represent the things they actually depict. 2. As determinatives to show that the signs preceding are meant as phonograms and to indicate the general idea of the word. 3. As phonograms to represent sounds that "spell out" individual words. A phonemic system, one which is based upon symbols that represent spoken sound, can use alphabetic or non-alphabetic writing. Either way, the phonemic system opened the door to a functioning alphabet. |
The Roman Letter : Written and Carved
Early Roman Lapidary
2nd Century B.C.E. Following the Greek style, the first Roman stone carved letters were of equal width and without serifs. The Romans added some word spacing to divide the words into single units via dots placed midline. Twenty letters of the modern alphabet are derived from Roman lettering. K,Y, Z came from Greek. Later additions of J (a version of I) and U, W (from V) complete the 26 letters |
Painting with a Square-cut Brush, The Origin of the Serif?
During the 1st century lettering changed in composition from monoline evenness to forms made from thick and thin strokes. Exactly why this happened remains unknown. Type historians have theorized that serifs resulted from stone cutters following the forms left by a square-cut writing implement; not a reed or quill, but a flat stiff brush. Above is a late example of Rustic Capitals shown currently on James Mosley's blog Typefoundry, where he quotes the observations of W. R. Lethaby in 1906, "The Roman characters which are our letters today, although their earlier forms have only come down to us cut in stone, must have been formed by incessant practice with a flat, stiff brush, or some such tool. This disposition of the thick and thins, and the exact shape of the curves, must have been settled by an instrument used rapidly; I suppose, indeed, that most of the great monumental inscriptions were designed by a master writer, and only cut in by the mason ." |
Classical Roman Lapidary
1st Century, C.E. In the late 1960's a similar observation was made by Father Edward Catich, a calligrapher, stone carver and expert on the Roman alphabet. While studying for the priesthood in Rome, Catich was able to visit the sites of original Roman stone engravings. He published his findings in a 1968 work The Origin of the Serif, Brush Writing and Roman Letters. The lapidary stone-engraved letters were painted on stone with a square-cut tool and then incised; from such means resulted the thick and thin variations of the strokes and the serifs. |
Trajan Inscription
Probably the most revered example of Roman capitals appear in an inscription at the base of a war monument in Rome— Trajan's Column, C. E. 117. Many considered this particular work to embody the ultimate resolution of Latin letterform evolution. Numerous type designers over 20 centuries have used the Trajan lettering as a prototype for derivative typefaces— including the famous Edward Johnston, Eric Gill and Carol Twombly reinterpretations. Trajan's Column in Rome |
week 3
Art Nouveau - THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM {1880 - 1914}The Art Nouveau style appeared in the early 1880s and was gone by the eve of the First World War. For a brief, brilliant moment, Art Nouveau was a shimmering presence in urban centers throughout Europe and North America. It was the style of the age--seen on public buildings and advertisements, inside private homes and outside street cafés--adorning the life of the city. The name "Art Nouveau" is a French word for "new art".
futurism {1920 - 1940}, dada, cubism and surrealism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto.
wikipedia
week 4
bauhaus {1919 - 1933}people, places, products & philosophy
Bauhaus is a German expression meaning "house for building." In 1919, the economy in Germany was collapsing after a crushing war. Architect Walter Gropius was appointed to head a new institution that would help rebuild the country and form a new social order.
It was first founded in Weimar in 1919 by Walter Gropius with a faculty that included Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Breuer. In 1925 the school was relocated to Dessau untill 1932 and Berlin from 1932 to 1933, under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 until 1933 Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth façades and cubic shapes. Colors are white, gray, beige or black. Floor plans are open and furniture is functional. Bauhaus architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves and decorative details. They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without ornamentation of any kind. “A world has been destroyed; we must seek a radical solution.” said Wailter Gropius. Personal relations in Bauhaus were not as harmonious as they may seem now, half a century later. The Swiss painter Itten and the Hungarian Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who taught the Preliminary Course, left after strong disagreements in 1928, Paul Klee - in 1931. Some, for instance Kandinsky and Albers, stayed loyal until the closing of Bauhaus in 1933. In 1933 the Nazi government closed the Bauhaus school in Berlin. The Nazi government claimed that it was a centre of communist intellectualism. The Nazi majority of Dessau suspended the seat of learning. Paul Schultze-Naumburg was the architect that they sent into the school to re-establish pure German art instead of the "cosmopolitan rubbish" the Bauhaus artists were doing. He described Bauhaus furniture as Kisten, or boxes. Bauhaus was even as private institution so much hated by the National Socialist government that the police closed it up on 11th April, 1933. By September 1932, the Nazis had won a majority in Dessau, and cut off all financial support to the Bauhaus. The school was forced to move to Berlin, where it survived without any public funding for a brief time. On April 11 1933, the Berlin police, acting on the orders of the new Nazi government finally closed it. The New Bauhaus, founded in 1937 in Chicago, was the immediate successor to the Bauhaus dissolved in 1933 under National Socialist pressure. Bauhaus ideology had a strong impact throughout America, but it was only at the New Bauhaus that the complete curriculum as developed under Walter Gropius in Weimar and Dessau was adopted and further developed. The former Bauhaus master Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was founding director of the New Bauhaus. The focus on natural and human sciences was increased, and photography grew to play a more prominent role at the school in Chicago than it had done in Germany. Training in mechanical techniques was more sophisticated than it had been in Germany. |
Bauhaus philosophy
Manifesto, legacy, influence
Manifesto
Gropius himself said,"The Bauhaus does not pretend to be a crafts school; contact with industry is consciously sought...the old craft workshops will develop into industrial laboratories: from their experimentation will evolve standards for industrial production...The teaching of a craft is meant to prepare for designing for mass production. Starting with the simplest tools and least complicated jobs, he gradually acquires ability to master more intricate problem and to work with machinery, while at the same time he keeps in touch with the entire process of production from start to finish." (Naylor, p.93) Bauhaus teaching aimed to develop rational principles to determine the organization of type, rules, white space, colors, etc.(Livingston, p.145) Gropius repositioned the goals of the Bauhaus in 1923, stressing the importance of designing for mass production. It was at this time that the school adopted the slogan "Art into Industry."
Legacy
The Bauhaus firmly establish industrial design. It stripped away the decoration, and left clean lines of function. To some this represents the removal of all that is human in the crafts. To the teachers and followers of the involved in the Bauhaus, function was the primary concern, removing the past was a secondary consequence. The Bauhaus ushered in the modern era of design. While there were similar movements, such as the de Stijl, the Bauhaus has become the symbol of modern design. It did achieve many of Gropius's goals. It left a legacy for visual communication programs, art and design schools to follow. Many of these schools use the courses developed at the Bauhaus.
A Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis A. Donis (1973) is one of the most widely used books in visual communications courses. In this book the author state the following of the Bauhaus:
Their probing for a means to reconcile the artist and the machine became the inspiration for the "Bauhaus," an art school started by Walter Gropius and a distinguished group of teachers in Germany directly after the ending of the war, in 1919. Its purpose was to pursue new forms and new solutions to man's basic needs as well as his aesthetic ones. The Bauhaus' curriculum returned to fundamentals, the basic materials, the basic rules of design. And the question they dared to ask led to new definitions of beauty in the unadorned and practical aspects of the functional.
Functional Techniques:
Influence
The Bauhaus influenced Later art movements such as Abstract Expressionists and Op-Art. The Abstract Expressionist's theme revolved around the color theories which evolved from the Bauhaus classes. The Hard-Edge and Minimal movements of the Abstract Expressionists explored color through clean, clear edges of solid color.(Piper, p.686) Op-Art is optical art, which tricks the retina to create the illusion of movment.(Piper, p.708) Op-Art is widely used in modern commercial graphic design.
Manifesto, legacy, influence
Manifesto
Gropius himself said,"The Bauhaus does not pretend to be a crafts school; contact with industry is consciously sought...the old craft workshops will develop into industrial laboratories: from their experimentation will evolve standards for industrial production...The teaching of a craft is meant to prepare for designing for mass production. Starting with the simplest tools and least complicated jobs, he gradually acquires ability to master more intricate problem and to work with machinery, while at the same time he keeps in touch with the entire process of production from start to finish." (Naylor, p.93) Bauhaus teaching aimed to develop rational principles to determine the organization of type, rules, white space, colors, etc.(Livingston, p.145) Gropius repositioned the goals of the Bauhaus in 1923, stressing the importance of designing for mass production. It was at this time that the school adopted the slogan "Art into Industry."
Legacy
The Bauhaus firmly establish industrial design. It stripped away the decoration, and left clean lines of function. To some this represents the removal of all that is human in the crafts. To the teachers and followers of the involved in the Bauhaus, function was the primary concern, removing the past was a secondary consequence. The Bauhaus ushered in the modern era of design. While there were similar movements, such as the de Stijl, the Bauhaus has become the symbol of modern design. It did achieve many of Gropius's goals. It left a legacy for visual communication programs, art and design schools to follow. Many of these schools use the courses developed at the Bauhaus.
A Primer of Visual Literacy by Donis A. Donis (1973) is one of the most widely used books in visual communications courses. In this book the author state the following of the Bauhaus:
Their probing for a means to reconcile the artist and the machine became the inspiration for the "Bauhaus," an art school started by Walter Gropius and a distinguished group of teachers in Germany directly after the ending of the war, in 1919. Its purpose was to pursue new forms and new solutions to man's basic needs as well as his aesthetic ones. The Bauhaus' curriculum returned to fundamentals, the basic materials, the basic rules of design. And the question they dared to ask led to new definitions of beauty in the unadorned and practical aspects of the functional.
Functional Techniques:
- Simpicity
- Symmetry
- Angularity
- Abstraction
- Consistency
- Unity
- Organization
- Economy
Influence
The Bauhaus influenced Later art movements such as Abstract Expressionists and Op-Art. The Abstract Expressionist's theme revolved around the color theories which evolved from the Bauhaus classes. The Hard-Edge and Minimal movements of the Abstract Expressionists explored color through clean, clear edges of solid color.(Piper, p.686) Op-Art is optical art, which tricks the retina to create the illusion of movment.(Piper, p.708) Op-Art is widely used in modern commercial graphic design.
❝DEsign after modernism❞
week 5
history of graphic design
WILLIAM ADDISON DWIGGINS
Dwiggins is probably most noted for coining the term 'Graphic Designer' in 1922 which he used in reference to himself. His work encompassed book design, lettering, typography and calligraphy. He created several typefaces including two that are still used often today for the Linotype corporation Electra and Caledonia.
Dwiggins was one of the most influential book designers of the 1920s and 30s, and his work re-kindled public interest in book design.
Dwiggins was a man of many skills and did not limit himself to one trade, although he said that he would like to most be remembered for his type design. In 1928 he wrote and published the book 'Layout in Advertising' which, at the time, was considered to be the reference text for the field.
Dwiggins is probably most noted for coining the term 'Graphic Designer' in 1922 which he used in reference to himself. His work encompassed book design, lettering, typography and calligraphy. He created several typefaces including two that are still used often today for the Linotype corporation Electra and Caledonia.
Dwiggins was one of the most influential book designers of the 1920s and 30s, and his work re-kindled public interest in book design.
Dwiggins was a man of many skills and did not limit himself to one trade, although he said that he would like to most be remembered for his type design. In 1928 he wrote and published the book 'Layout in Advertising' which, at the time, was considered to be the reference text for the field.